More dis­patches from the sum­mer. After Aykut Uzan, my fixer, and I left Ankara, we spent a few days in Cap­pado­cia. We arrived in Uçisar, after three hours of dri­ving. Aykut turned off the main high­way and onto an older, less well-maintained road. He often swerved wildly to avoid the seem­ingly end­less num­ber of pot­holes and ditches on what?s left of the ancient Silk Road, which ran from Bei­jing to Istan­bul.
Sud­denly, on our right was the Agzikara­han Car­a­vai, a 13^th cen­tury hotel and way sta­tion for the car­a­vans that car­ried the spices and fab­rics between Istan­bul and Bei­jing. These car­a­vais were built by the Seljuk Turks every 30 to 40 km and fol­lowed a strict archi­tec­tural style. A cen­tral court­yard con­tain­ing a kitchen and a mosque were sur­rounded by naves and cham­bers within the thick walls. A dis­tinc­tive pointed dome was the sig­nal to weary trav­el­ers that sanc­tu­ary was nearby — but only for one night.
In Uçisar, Many were wor­ried about a loom­ing war, since Cap­pado­cia is one of the top tourist des­ti­na­tions of Turkey. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the region had been suf­fer­ing as no one was com­ing to visit. In the mid­dle of sum­mer, we were able to find a room in one of the beau­ti­ful rock hotels in town, with the rooms carved directly into the stone of the canyon walls. But after three days of Cap­pado­cia, it was time to move on. And we headed off to Diyarbakir, the flash­point for much of the war with the Kur­dish Work­ers’ Party (PKK) since 1984.
More than 37,000 peo­ple died in the civil war that raged across much of south­east Turkey from 1984 to 1998, end­ing only when Abdul­lah Ocalan, the party’s leader, was cap­tured and brought to Turk­ish jus­tice. While in cus­tody, he renounced vio­lence and sought to be a voice of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion between Turks and Kurds. Need­less to say, many Turks didn’t believe his jail­house con­ver­sion and many of his old com­pa­tri­ots in the PKK con­sid­ered him a quis­ling. He avoided the noose because of Turkey’s attempts to join the Euro­pean Union. His death sen­tence was com­muted in Octo­ber.
But Diyarbakir, with its his­toric basalt walls limn­ing the city like kohl around a Kur­dish girl’s eyes, hadn’t changed in the four years since Ocalan’s cap­ture. The streets were oppres­sive, with the pres­ence of police every­where. Aykut and I were fol­lowed the whole time we were there, and men came sniff­ing about my hotel, ask­ing the staff about me and what I was doing there. The peo­ple who did talk to me veered from the timid and wor­ried to the brave and/or fatal­is­tic. The dom­i­nant thought among the res­i­dents, who daily live under the heel of police that rou­tinely use armored per­son­nel car­ri­ers to keep order, was that even if emer­gency rule were lifted — which it was in Octo­ber — noth­ing would change as the econ­omy was so dev­as­tated, there was no hope for the peo­ple to make a liv­ing. A. Turan Demir, the deputy chair­man of HADEP, the Kur­dish party in Turkey with its strongest base in Diyarbakir, listed many of the prob­lems of the region in this inter­view I had with him: destroyed vil­lages, dis­crim­i­na­tion, intim­i­da­tion… A list of offenses that nei­ther side can ever fully for­give.
What fol­lows is a col­lec­tion of notes and emails that I took when I was in Diyarbakir (and which I emailed out after I real­ized the level of sur­veil­lance I was under.) Read­ing back over the emails and notes, I see that some of it is insen­si­tive, but I think now that the tone masks a level of frus­tra­tion both with the envi­ron­ment as a New Yorker and with the treat­ment that many peo­ple live under.
From: Christopher Allbritton
Date: Wed Jul 10, 2002 12:37:10 PM America/New_York
Subject: Update...

Hey all?
Popped into the local press office today, just to say hi, and they were expect­ing me. Creepy. There was a doc­u­ment from Ankara to say that I was com­ing and to accredit me for Emer­gency Rule Zone report­ing. Now I have TWO press cards from the Turks. I was told I could go ?any­where? and talk to ?any­one? but I sus­pect that any vis­its to HADEP offices will be frowned upon. It?s not a big deal to me, as an Amer­i­can, they would likely send me back to Ankara or Istan­bul after con­fis­cat­ing film, but my guide, Aykut, lives in this coun­try. He?s mar­ried to a Kur­dish woman and has a past involve­ment with rad­i­cal left­ist move­ments. He?s left it all behind, but I don?t want my trou­bles to spill over and cause him or his fam­ily grief.
Also, the money sit­u­a­tion is not good. My ten­ant, Theresa, has not made deposits as she said she would. If she doesn?t make some deposits by the end of this week, I?ll have to skip Iraq, head back to Ger­many and then imme­di­ately head back to the states, which would just about kill the pur­pose of all of this. I?m not pleased, obvi­ously, by this devel­op­ment. Nor will Fabi­ana be pleased either, I think, but at the moment that?s the least of my wor­ries.
Other than that, all is well. Cap­pado­cia was amaz­ing, with all sorts of oth­er­worldly, “Planet of the Apes”-style rockscapes and houses. Diyarbakir, on the other hand, is hot and oppres­sive.
I?m glad every­one is doing well, and I can?t wait to see you all again.

And this one I sent out later:
From: Christopher Allbritton
Date: Wed Jul 10, 2002 10:18:04 PM America/New_York
Subject: Lame!

Lame­lame­lame­lame­lame!
And thus, I pass judg­ment on poor, war-torn Diyarbakir. Christ, what a bor­ing town. I thought war-zones were sup­posed to bring out the deca­dence in peo­ple (Berlin, maybe?) but instead, I get sul­len­ness. Shit, the one bar that looked good, we couldn’t get in. We had not women with us.
Let me repeat that. I got turned away at the door at a bar in Diyarbakir.
Hon­estly, how lame is that? Finally, we ended up on the roof of out hotel, lis­ten­ing to the Kur­dish ver­sion of “Mr. Vegas” on a Casio key­board sing Arabesque songs in the roof restau­rant. If it weren’t for the singer, it would have been almost pleas­ant. Instead, I felt sorry for the peo­ple liv­ing the apart­ments right next door to the hotel. Some were out on their bal­cony “enjoy­ing” the singer.
Hm. Read­ing back that last para­graph leads me to believe I would be per­fect as a colo­nial gov­er­nor in, oh, 1895 or so. All that’s lack­ing is a British accent, old chap. And I’m sup­posed to be cul­tur­ally sen­si­tive. Per­haps I’m just damn tired of noth­ing work­ing right in this coun­try. Today, I had to mail a con­tract back to the states so we went to the post office. Look­ing around, there were no envelopes.
“I need to buy an enve­lope,” I told Aykut.
“You didn’t tell me that,” he said. “You have to buy those some­where else.“
What kind of post office sells stamps but not envelopes?
I feel sorry for the police peo­ple fol­low­ing us. They must be very, very bored. We walk and we eat and occa­sion­ally talk to some poor schmuck on the street. We’re not very inter­est­ing sub­jects to tail, I don’t think. Hell, tonight I was hop­ing our tails would take pity on us and pull up and say, “You look like a cou­ple of guys look­ing for some fun. Let’s have a friendly drink at the belly danc­ing palace.” Alas, such things rarely hap­pened in the Cold War, and I doubt they’re going to hap­pen now.
So that’s the score. I’m back in my hotel room (and every­thing undis­turbed, includ­ing my own hair I left stick­ing out of my lap­top in case some­one came in and opened it. Para­noia can be fun!)
So that’s all. Safe and sound. I may have an appoint­ment with the mil­i­tary gov­er­nor tomor­row. Or not. With­out doubt I will have to drink more tea. Every time I sit down in an office, a porter brings me tea in the lit­tle glasses. It’s tasty, but it’s 120 degrees Fahren­heit out­side. And the tea is hot. Aykut drinks the stuff like it was water, says it keeps him healthy and quenches his thirst, but I need real water, not hot tea.

[Ed. — I sup­pose this last sen­tence could be mis­taken for some kind of metaphor about the dif­fer­ences between the rit­u­als of the east with the cool drink of West­ern ratio­nal­ism, but I won’t bother since I never intended the lament for water to be any­thing more than a sign that I was thirsty.]
To be continued…